These are better days

Sporting Club de Falcon 2 PFFC 10

Joe, 21 April 2002

 

We’ve all been there.

Trekked across London bleary-eyed and bilious, thumbing the Sunday paper, string wordlessly at the junkies strewn across the platform of Brixton station.

Humped your bag into a grey dressing-room. Pulled on a pair of socks.

Grimaced at their dampness, remembering you forgot to dig them out of your bag the previous Sunday.

Limped out into a late spring heatwave, started off brightly, tweaked that nagging calf muscle, gone a few behind, fought back briefly, then got leathered in the second half.

Showered, gone home, developed a headache, ironed your shirts, gone to bed early hoping for a decent night’s sleep, tossed and turned as the Astroturf carpet burn on your arse began to itch.

As I say, we’ve all been there, though not for quite a long time. But the memories of those punishing days are fresh enough to have made this victory a glorious experience rather than a dull non-event. There were, you see, countless highlights.

*Neil bagged his second hat-trick in two weeks, the fifth game in succession in which he scored. Stefan, also enjoying a purple patch as the season came to a close, added two more.

Jez, making an emotional return and playing for the first time since November, grabbed his goal for the season, so ensuring he left his mark on the championship season. There were also goals for Keir (his second in two games), Paul (whose other goal this season also came against Falcon, back in November) and Jason, whose three appearances at the end of the season gave us a final push across the finishing line.

The celebrations were completed back in the dressing room when news filtered through that Aztec had only managed a draw against Strollers (do Strollers ever do anything but draw?). It left us knowing that just a win from one of our remaining two games would seal the title. We headed for the pub and reminisced about the days when the goals for and goals against columns had looked rather different.